Unlocking the Dutch educational system

We want to enable all citizens to have free access to education and all other
public institutions, both online and offline. We wish to achieve this by
pushing for a mandatory use of Open
Standards and guaranteed platform-independent access to all materials
required in the public educational system. This allows students and parents to
use Free Software, enabling them to tap into their potential for personal
growth and development, without being made dependent of a company.

What do we want to achieve?

pursue the goals of the (unfortunately) discontinued action plan
"Netherlands Open in Connection" by making the use of Open Standards
truly mandatory for all institutions in the (semi-)public sector;

make vendor-independent access to all IT services, school materials
and necessary information a requirement for all publicly-funded
(educational) institutions;

promote innovative education in IT skills by broadening the
educational program with vendor-independent knowledge, insights, and
skill sets;

avoid vendor lock-ins, monopoly abuse, and anti-competitive
practices which take away civilians' freedom of choice within the entire
public sector, primarily the educational system;

avoid the forced acceptance of license agreements with commercial
companies in order to be allowed to take part of the educational system
and the rest of the public sector.

In the Netherlands, students have been locked out of school computers, learning
accessories, lesson materials, and required data for years due to the use of
proprietary software. They are forced to purchase proprietary software just to
perform the most basic tasks; such as handing in their assignments, receiving
objectives, cooperating on projects, and passing exams. Many schools and
especially universities oblige students to use or even own computers with
non-free operating systems without any clear reasons for doing so. Moreover,
this situation could become much worse now that 'laptop schools' and 'tablet
schools' are on the rise, which, combined with compulsory education - of which
the minimal age might be increased to 21 years - will not only make
it hard to use Free Software in the educational system, but it would even
make it illegal not to use proprietary software instead.

The former minister of Education declared, in response to questions from
Parliament, that she considered long-term vendor lock-in to be acceptable.
Thereby she rejected the ambitious Dutch Open Standards policy framework and
ignored the short-term and long-term consequences:

the enforced purchase of proprietary computer technology just to be
able to participate in public education is illegal and unconstitutional, as
it takes away the right of civilians who do not accept the license
agreements of non-free software to participate in the public educational
system, which should be accessible for everybody without any obstacles or
limitations;

it limits educational institutions to offer only constrained,
vendor-specific skill sets aimed at very few proprietary programs, rather
than providing truly universal, independent theoretical knowledge;

it reduces the innovative strength of the Dutch economy as the
educational systems don't provide it with a sufficiently trained,
technologically independent labour force;

it forces Dutch companies, organizations, and governmental institutions
to spend billions of euros each year on re-training personnel, doing
unnecessary and enforced hardware upgrades, and paying unnecessary license
fees.

In the spring of 2012, after the cabinet crisis, the campaign went on hiatus,
as obviously no new policies could be formed at that time.

Early 2013 the campaign was revived after yet another letter was sent to the
Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science; this time to new minister Jet
Bussemaker. Her response was far more useful than the one of her predecessor,
and has brought us closest to our ultimate target so far. In her response
to questions from Parliament, she made the following clear statement: "All
Dutch civilians have the right to take part in the Dutch educational system
without limitations. This is also the case for Free Software users. No
exception must be made for them."

In reality, this promise is seldom lived up to. Although this campaign was at
first initiated because of the many problems around the notorious online
learning environment Magister, and the most recent campaign was yet again
brought to life because of this, the problems are sadly much larger than only
that. Nearly three quarters of the high schools in the Netherlands use
Magister, a Silverlight program which is obviously completely incompatible with
Free Software, but aside from that, there are huge problems concerning open
document standards, such as ODF and PDF. Despite the fact that Mrs. Bussemaker
literally said that schools are obligated to accept both formats, this is
rarely the case anywhere. Students are very regularly forced to save their
documents as DOC files, and usually face point deduction in case the lay-out
proves to be problematic with the non-free office software installed on the
school computers (which is unavoidable with closed standards).

Moreover, it is impossible to follow any education at any Dutch university
without being forced to use non-free operating systems and other non-free
software, and thereby accepting the associated license agreements. Many courses
even have owning a laptop with Microsoft Windows as an implicit admission
requirement. Despite the fact that the current minister of Education
"acknowledges the limitations in the license agreements of non-free software",
educational institutions rarely, if ever, act upon that.

Background

Using proprietary technologies for public services is a deliberate choice for
long-term vendor lock-in and forced contract acceptance. This should be
prevented at all times; especially in education and the public sector at large.
The FSFE wants to push the mandatory use of Open Standards and platform
independence in the entire public sector; not just within Dutch legislation,
but throughout all of Europe. The Dutch Parliament has been advocating the
mandatory use of Open Standards for more than a decade; ever since the resolution of Kees
Vendrik in 2002. This led to an ambitious and internationally acclaimed
policy framework in 2007. Sadly, this achievement was hampered by the previous
minister of Education. She refused to implement the policies, and because of
that, schools continued to use proprietary technology and closed standards
nearly exclusively. The result was that their students remained to be forced to
use proprietary software of specific vendors and to accept the accompanying
license agreements against their will.
The response of the current minister of Education promises to be a lot more
hopeful though. Even though there are many things left to do, her statements at
least made clear that she agrees that the current situation is not what we
should wish for at all. Using those claims, public educational institutions
might finally understand that public education can hardly be called "public"
when only the users of non-free software are accepted and welcomed.

This campaign aims to bring about new and sturdier legislation which obligates
the use of Open Standards and platform independence, and especially maintains
it. That always remained to be the biggest problem: we do have the basic
legislation, but nobody seems to care about actually enforcing it. The public
educational system exists for everybody; not just for those who have no
problems with using proprietary software.

How can I contribute?

Stand up for your civil rights: refuse to use proprietary software,
whatever the school or university might say. They may never force you to
use it.

Write about your experiences. Politicians and journalists are better
listeners than many people might expect. The more of us tell them that the
current situation is problematic, the greater the chance that they will
(quickly) take action.

Spread the word, try to convince others, and especially hold on to your
ideals; no matter what happens.

The Dutch government wants to tie the country's schools to
a single software vendor for years to come. Dutch students using Free Software
or devices without Silverlight-support will find themselves locked out of
schools' online systems due to the use of proprietary technology and closed
standards. Marja Bijsterveldt, the secretary of education, recently said that
she is unwilling
to enforce the Dutch government's own Open Standards policy on educational
institutions. Instead, the government will accept long-term vendor
lock-in of educational institutions.